New BBC Regions

I remember reading that the BBC plans to create a news programme based in Milton Keynes. Does anyone know when this will launch? Also, any news on the future of the South Today Oxford sub-opt?
Surely something will have to be done about this joke of a programme. The picture quality is abysmal, the studio is a converted reception, the journalism is dire and so too is the presenter. In comparison with this err... programme, even ITV West seems professional!

I dont think there are any plans to do it, but I really hope that some day the North East and Cumbria region will be split up; its simply far too big in that it covers Tyne and Wear, County Durham, Cumbira, Northumberland, Teeside and North Yorkshire..Stories that happen in Carlisle are inconsequential to the vast majority of viewers in Tyne and Wear. Also, despite having a huge region to look for stories in, Look North relies far too heavily on feature items rather than what I'd consider proper news to pad out its 30mins.

I dont think there are any plans to do it, but I really hope that some day the North East and Cumbria region will be split up; its simply far too big in that it covers Tyne and Wear, County Durham, Cumbira, Northumberland, Teeside and North Yorkshire..Stories that happen in Carlisle are inconsequential to the vast majority of viewers in Tyne and Wear. Also, despite having a huge region to look for stories in, Look North relies far too heavily on feature items rather than what I'd consider proper news to pad out its 30mins.

Hopefully any regional split to NE&C would also mean the end of Carol's end reign of torture. And she really was AWFUL on today's 3.22pm bulletin. One minute she's more miserable than a wet funeral, the next minute she's like an excited little girl who's just been bought a new toy.

I remember reading that the BBC plans to create a news programme based in Milton Keynes. Does anyone know when this will launch? Also, any news on the future of the South Today Oxford sub-opt?
Surely something will have to be done about this joke of a programme. The picture quality is abysmal, the studio is a converted reception, the journalism is dire and so too is the presenter. In comparison with this err... programme, even ITV West seems professional!

Oxford got new titles, stings and music along with Southampton this week and is due for some other major improvements soon I understand. The MK thing has gone a bit quiet recently, especially in the light of improvments to Cambridge's and Oxford's sub-opts. Maybe they won't bother with MK?

As I understand it, Jersey moves out of the Garage this week or next too - to it's new studio in St Hellier. That should also be a major improvement.

I Hope they hand back responsibility of cumbria to nwt - it already broadcasts to barrow anyway!!!! Look north also, for some bizarre reason seams to cover the whole of southern scotland - even though they do not acknowledge it, although they should. Wot region is mk in anyway? is it look east west opt, st oxford or e mids today? The beeb need to get their regions sorted out. After all regions such as bbc mids is received in east wales and beeb south seems to share its patch with bbc sw, bbc west, bbc mids, bbc se and bbc london!

Wot region is mk in anyway? is it look east west opt, st oxford or e mids today? The beeb need to get their regions sorted out. After all regions such as bbc mids is received in east wales and beeb south seems to share its patch with bbc sw, bbc west, bbc mids, bbc se and bbc london!

Milton Keynes is currently served by the Look East (West) sub-opt from Cambridge.

The history behind the South region is pretty complex and goes part of the way to explain why there's so much overlapping and a few anomalies. Originally I think, BBC South stretched from Dorset to Kent and included London. The South East region was created and included Oxfordshire, Greater London and Kent, Surrey etc. The most recent big change was when "South East" became Kent/Surrey only (from Tunbridge Wells), "London/LDN" was formed and produced from Marylebone High Street and the Oxford transmitter was reassigned to the South region and a sub-opt was created for Oxfordshire and surrounding areas.

As for West - that's pretty much a fairly defined region, though in some areas some people watch neighbouring regions. In Swindon for example, some viewers point aerials at Mendip, others at Oxford. In bits of Somerset, some people get Spotlight, others get Points West.

"Midlands" (the BBC don't call it
West
Midlands) is a massive patch and people in the fringes (North Staffs or Gloucestershire for example) have been often pretty poorly served.

The history behind the South region is pretty complex and goes part of the way to explain why there's so much overlapping and a few anomalies. Originally I think, BBC South stretched from Dorset to Kent and included London.

No, BBC South as it is now has only ever covered the current South region, minus Oxfrordshire which was added in 2001.

What you are getting confused with is the BBC department called BBC South which was formed in the late 1980's. England was split into BBC South (which included the South East, South, West and South West regions) BBC Midlands (West & East Midlands and East ) and BBC North (North West North (leeds) and North East (Newcastle)) . These weren't regions in terms of programming, they were just administrative and do still kind of exsist today. The old 'South' division for example still have integrated IT and personnel departments based in Bristol, they also share certain internal systems that don't exsist anywhere else in the country

The BBC South television region has always been roughly what it is now (except for Oxford which it gained in 2000). The region formally known as BBC South East - which is now Oxford, BBC London and the new-ish BBC South East region has always been seperate from what was coming out of Southampton. The region including London was traditionally an oddity because until the mid 1980's it didn't really exsist as a region. It didn't have a dedicated news service, the afternoon bulletin for example was replaced by a cartoon in the South East. And whereas 'Spotlight, South Today', 'Look North' et al were referenced in the titles of Nationwide.... they used the phrase 'South East ' for the local news, keeping the national presenters

The beeb need to get their regions sorted out. After all regions such as bbc mids is received in east wales and beeb south seems to share its patch with bbc sw, bbc west, bbc mids, bbc se and bbc london!

It's the fault of physics andl geography rather than the BBCs - they cannot stop the signals from the Southtransmitters spilling out to it's 5 neighbours

Milton Keynes is currently served by the Look East (West) sub-opt from Cambridge.

Yep - though AIUI this is because of the cable system implementation? I think that ITV1 London and ITV1 Anglia are both available - but am not sure if both versions of BBC One are provided?

Quote:

The history behind the South region is pretty complex and goes part of the way to explain why there's so much overlapping and a few anomalies. Originally I think, BBC South stretched from Dorset to Kent and included London.

Not true in News terms.

Originally there was the South regiona out of Southampton - and the London and the South East region, which got
some
regional news programmes produced by BBC Current Affairs at Lime Grove. This was in the era of South East at Six in Nationwide, South East in 60 Minutes, and London Plus.

However in some regional opt-out slots where other regions got short local news bulletins, BBC London and South East viewers got other stuff instead.

The original London and South East region (referred to as South East on-screen) included the BBC Oxford region (now a sub-opt of South Today), the current BBC South East region (now a full opt from Tunbridge Wells) and BBC London (now a full opt from Marylebone High St)

BBC London and South East moved from Lime Grove to Elstree in the late 80s, and just a bit before this the BBC created Macro-regions.*

Quote:

The South East region was created and included Oxfordshire, Greater London and Kent, Surrey etc. The most recent big change was when "South East" became Kent/Surrey only (from Tunbridge Wells), "London/LDN" was formed and produced from Marylebone High Street and the Oxford transmitter was reassigned to the South region and a sub-opt was created for Oxfordshire and surrounding areas.

In the late 90s a review of the London and South East area was undertaken - because a single BBC service was covering a very large area. The results of this were that BBC London became a separate operation, BBC South East for Kent and Sussex became a separate operation, and BBC Oxford became a sub-opt out of South Today.

This was phased - with BBC Oxford splitting away first, then Newsroom South East moving to the new BBC London premises (it continued as a very basic CSO for a month or two) before South East Today and BBC London News (aka LDN) launched.

* BBC Macro Regions

The original macro regions in the late 80s were:
BBC South (which then included BBC South West, West and South), BBC South and East (which included BBC London and the South East, and BBC East)
BBC Midlands (BBC East and West Midlands)
BBC North (BBC North West, BBC North East and Cumbria, BBC North)

Eventually in the early 90s the Macro regions were re-jigged again, creating :
BBC South (BBC South West, BBC West, BBC South and BBC London and South East)
BBC MIdlands and East (BBC East Midlands, BBC West Midlands, BBC East)
BBC North (same as before)

Some regional shows were produced on a Macro regional level. BBC South and East used to produce a dual-region show called "Weekend" - which came from the BBC East studio in Norwich (at the time this was unused because Look East came from the Newsroom) but featured reports from as far away as Kent and Oxford. Fiona "GMTV" Philips did the travel on it - with scary hair and make-up...

The MK thing has gone a bit quiet recently, especially in the light of improvments to Cambridge's and Oxford's sub-opts. Maybe they won't bother with MK?

Not sure what improvements you mean about Cambridge - it is still a very basic analogue PAL studio, with very limited facilities. They may well be doing longer shows, but the infrastructure is getting on, and was "low cost" to begin with. There is also the issue that they have already had to re-locate the newsroom once because of a lease not being renewed, and the current situation where the newsroom is in a different building is far from ideal.

I suspect MK is still on the cards - but I also suspect that re-equipping Plymouth, Bristol, Newcastle, Manchester and Southampton is also a priority - and resources and manpower for these projects are finite.